


Pirates

by secretinternetbox



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 11:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17866601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretinternetbox/pseuds/secretinternetbox
Summary: Very loosely based on the romance novel Pirates by Linda Lael Miller where the main character falls back in time & in love with a pirate





	Pirates

 

**Unpredictable**

 

Of all the life advice that Tim had never gotten from his parents, who had disappeared when he was ten (thanks for the therapy sessions, Mom, Dad, _gosh_ ), he would have at least thought that warning him about the machines in their basement would have been top on their list.

 

He hoped that one day, if he ever found a list of “Things We Shall Tell Our Son,” somewhere at the very top would be “Get out of the science business and do something boring with your life. We hear that accounting is nice.”

 

That would be second only to “Don’t touch the Stargate-Looking-Type thing in the basement.”

 

But that’s not how it happened.

 

Tim Drake’s parents disappeared when he was little, they never left him such a list, and he had watched too many episodes of SG-1 & Atlantis to be truly ignorant of the contraption he had taken to calling the Drake Stargate.

 

His best friend, Dick (traveling circus performer, wannabe cop) warned him, every week, to stay away from it.

 

“It’s clearly a terrible idea! How do you think your parents disappeared? Coincidence? Tim? Tim? Did you hang up on me again? You little b-“

 

So, that’s how, after about a year of research and case upon case of RedBull, Tim found himself falling through the Drake Stargate.

 

———————

**Storm**

 

Captain Todd had seen a lot of storms in his time but none like this. The St. Elmo’s fire that was streaking across the sky had the entire ocean shuddering as rain came pouring down in buckets.

 

Soon enough, it wasn’t the lightning that had the Captain’s attention. It was the figure that seemed to be falling from the sky.

 

“It’s a bird!” The second-mate, Roy, called from his place on the deck.

 

“Mighty large bird.” The first-mate, Kory, shouted back to him. The Captain covered his eyes and pushed her away from him, towards the ship’s wheel.

 

He looked up at the sky, hands above, trying to block out the lightning so he could get a better view as the figure hit the ocean. “No…it’s…an angel.” Jason said in a breathless whisper, audible to only Kory.

 

“Well, it’s fish food now, Captain.” Kory laughed. It was short-lived as the figure popped out of the water, sputtering. It- he attempted to thwart the storm waves, which seem to have calmed for him as soon as he had hit the water.

 

“Well. Perhaps he’s a magic merman.” She murmured.

 

———————

**No one gets left behind**

 

“Christ, someone grab him out of the water!” Todd shouted down to the deck. “Before the storm rears up again!”

 

“The bird?” Roy asked, sliding down tilt of the deck towards a rope barrel. Todd snarled at the crew but no actual words came out.

 

“Why are we wasting our neck for someone who isn’t crew?” Someone piped up.

 

“You heard the captain!” was Kory’s only response before a massive wave combined with Roy at the other end of the rope lifted the young man up, over the deck railing and right into the captain’s arms.

 

Todd looked into his eyes, confused but still bright blue. “Hello.”

 

“Um…hi…” Tim whispered before his eyes rolled towards the back of his head and he passed out.

 

———————

**Captive**

 

“So I’m your prisoner?”

 

“You’re not my prisoner. You’re my stowaway.” The captain grumbled.

 

“His bird.”

 

“His angel.”

 

A glare silenced both his first and second mate.

 

“I didn’t stow away though, you’ll pulled me aboard the ship.” The young man had a strange accent and even stranger clothes.

 

“I remember it differently.” The captain’s word was law and he strode out of the room, leaving the prisoner chained to one of the crew beds.

 

———————

**To the sharks**

 

“WHERE ARE MY MAPS?”

 

“You said you wanted him to clean , so I had him clean.”

 

“I meant scrub the deck again.”

 

“You should have been more specific, cap. And he scrubbed the deck already. That’s all he’s been doing.”

 

“Good. He needs it. You’ve been feeding him as well?”

 

“Of course.” Only Kory dared to roll her eyes at the captain. “Between putting meat on his bones and you forcing him out in the sun all day, he’s started to look like one of us.”

 

“Good. That’s…good.”

 

“Good, captain?” She asked curiously and then, softer. “Jason?”

 

“I don’t know where he is from but it’s obviously not around here. He needs to blend in. The crew are already suspicious of how he came to get here. I don’t…we can’t afford a murder of a stowaway to catalyst us into a mutiny.”

 

“You’re doing it to protect him.” Kory’s knowing smile had the captain grumbling at her.

 

“I am doing it to protect us.” Jason snapped. “Now where the hell did he put everything. How am I supposed to get to the island if I don’t know where my damn tools are. Find them or you’re all going to the sharks.”

 

———————

**Enigma**

 

“I do not understand you.”

 

“You and everyone else in the world, Captain.”

 

“What?”

 

“Sorry, I meant, I know. I can’t…I don’t know how to explain it to you. You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

 

“If it helps, lad, I already think you are crazy.”

 

———————

**Mirror**

 

“You’re getting darker.”

 

“Well, someone keeps insisting that I’m out in the sun all day. Without any form of washing. I feel gross. I feel like one of you.”

 

“Good.”

 

———————

**Siren**

 

“Is that the story of the sirens?”

 

“You know that one? I thought you said you’d never been the sea.” Jason said suspiciously, trying to ignore the free way his stowaway roamed around the cabin, limbs at ease, listening to Roy to tell stories to some of the crew.

 

“I’ve studied ancient Greek. I know the story.”

 

“Then you can tell it.” Roy smirked.

 

“It’s just…I have a friend like a siren.” Tim grinned, wistfully, his eyes glassed over for a few seconds, lost in memories.

 

“Oh?” The captain sat up straighter. Ever since his stowaway blurted out that he was in the wrong century, Jason had been wanting to know more about his life. He wanted to know everything Timothy would give him.

 

“He draws everyone in with his charm.”

“Then he destroys them?” Roy asks.

 

“Well, he is quite the hugger.” Tim joked.

 

A flash of red across the captain’s face.

 

“That kind of friend. I see.”

 

———————

**Midnight**

 

“Why are you up here?”

 

“One of your drunken crew was passed out in my sleeping space.”

 

“And the crow’s nest at midnight is more comfortable for you? You’re a strange one, Timothy Drake.”

 

“I get that a lot, Captain.”

 

“Did Kory inform you of the next week’s schedule?”

 

“She said we might come across naval ships in these waters.”

 

“Correct.”

 

“Why go into those waters if there’s even a chance?”

 

“It’s a matter of honor.”

 

“Honor? You’re a pirate.”

 

“And?”

 

“Just. Really?”

 

“It’s a matter of family. My…father.”

 

“Your father?”

 

“Admiral Wayne.”

 

“Admiral Wayne is your father? Kory said he was in charge of the whole-“

 

“I know.”

 

“But-“

 

“I know.”

 

“Okay.”

 

———————

**Daddy-dearest**

 

“Father.”

 

“Jason. You look well.”

 

———————

**Across the seven damned seas**

 

“God…Dick!”

 

“Tim!”

 

Tim felt tension seeping out of his body as Dick picked him up off of the ground. It was Dick. Tim’s Dick was here, in the same century as Tim. He had never felt such relief. Nor had he wanted to ask so many questions at once.

 

Why was Dick on Admiral Wayne’s boat? How long had he been in the century? How did he get there? Did he plan crossing paths with Tim? How did he manage to look exactly like he belonged, in a cut naval uniform with sea-swept hair. Ugh. A damn Disney prince. The bastard. Why did Tim even miss him in the first place?

 

“How did you find me?”

 

“How do you think?” It wasn’t a smartass comment, Tim knew. Dick genuinely wasn’t sure what had happened to him.

 

“The machine. God. You fell through the machine too. Why did you go near it?”

 

“I couldn’t find you!”

 

“That doesn’t mean travel through time to get to me!”

 

“You don’t want to see me, then I can just leave.” Dick leered.

 

“I can’t believe you.”

 

“Little brother, I’d cross seas and centuries to find you.”

 

———————

**Don’t send me home**

 

Dick recognized that look on Tim’s face as Admiral Wayne and Captain Todd quietly began discussing what to do with their ‘stowaways.’ He had seen it years prior when a ten year old Tim had wandered into the circus without parents or regards for his own safety.

 

_“Aren’t you a little short to be a lion tamer?”_

 

_“Um.”_

 

_“Kid, go home.”_

 

_“You go home.”_

 

_“This is my home.” Dick smirked. He loved saying it aloud. He never expected the reaction he got from the kid in front of him though._

 

_“Don’t send me home, please.”_

 

———————

**Possessive nature**

 

“He’s ours.” Kory whispered fiercely to Jason, ignoring how close the admiral was to her captain.

 

“Don’t worry, you’re ours. We won’t let you go.” Roy told Tim, loudly.

 

“He isn’t ours.” Jason’s voice was rough and he wouldn’t lift his gaze from the deck. He knew the expression that would be on his Timothy’s face. But he belonged here, with the other handsome stowaway. Timothy would be safer on his father’s ship.

 

“Jason!”

 

“That’s Captain to you.”

 

“That’s arsehole.” Roy muttered.

 

———————

**Love me when I’m gone**

 

“I know you don’t like me. And I know you want to get rid of me. I just. I just want to thank you. For everything.” Tim said quietly, wishing that the captain, _Jason_ , would just look at him.

 

“I didn’t do anything.”

 

“You managed to get me back to my brother…Just. Thanks.”

 

He leaned in quickly and gave Jason a kiss. It happened so quickly that Jason barely registered it until Tim was already being led away by Dick.

 

_Three hours later._

 

The door to the captain’s quarters swung open “Did he say brother?”

 

Kory, sitting on the deck, legs crossed on the ships wheel just leaned back and exhaled: “Finally.”

 

———————

**Mother-dearest**

 

“You are the worst brother in the world. You’re acting like you’re my mom!”

 

“You could never resist a man in a thigh-high boots.”

 

“Diiiiiiick.”

 

“Richard? Is everything okay in there?” Admiral Wayne’s voice boomed through the door.

 

“Oh, you know, everything is fine, just taunting my little brother.”

 

———————

**Belong**

 

“I don’t think we can go back to our time.” Tim admitted quietly, finally saying aloud the words he had been thinking over the past few weeks.

 

“We belong there.” Dick said weakly.

 

“Do we though? Have we ever really belonged there? Has it ever felt right to you?” Tim urged him.

 

“…I don’t know if I want to, even if we could.” Dick admitted, eyes flicking up quickly to the Admiral, who was at his desk, doing a very good job of pretending not to eavesdrop on their conversation.

 

Tim managed a smile for his brother. He saw the way Dick and the admiral acted around one another. It was sweet in a way that made him miss Captain Todd.

 

_You can’t miss something that was never yours._ His brain sneered at him.

 

“I…”

 

“Do you want to go back to him? To them?” Dick asked, laying a comforting hand on Tim’s shoulder.

 

“He doesn’t want me there. I thought…Never mind. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

 

———————

**Treasure**

 

The admiral’s loud swear grabbed the attention of both young men.

 

“Admiral?”

 

“Bruce?”

 

“I was going over the letters received from the ship we passed not two days ago. It appears that the latest string of treasures that are being hunted is a false trail.”

 

“Bruce?” Dick asked again, knowing there was more to the message.

 

“It’s a trap. The treasure doesn’t exist.”

 

Tim felt his heart speed up and his eyes widened. “The treasure is booby-trapped?”

 

The admiral looked over at him sharply. “Todd?”

 

Tim just nodded, not able to catch his breath.

 

———————

**Catch Me**

 

“I caught another merman!” Roy called. “Do I get to keep him this time?”

 

Jason tried and failed to hide the fact that he had run from his quarters when he heard this. He strode up to Tim, not hiding his grin at all. “This is the second time you’ve come aboard my ship in this fashion, Timothy. Perhaps you really will never get the hang of life at sea.”

 

“It’s a trap.” Tim sputtered, sea water going everywhere. He leaned into Jason, coughing too much to enjoy the feel of the man’s arms around his waist, holding him up. It was the closest that Bruce’s ship had been able to come. They had to head off and warn other ships in the area. It wasn’t just pirates going for the treasure, everyone wanted in on the gold.

 

Jason froze. “What?”

 

“The map. The treasure. Everything. It’s a trap.”

 

———————

**Safety**

 

“Stay in here.”

 

“But I can help!”

 

“You’ve done enough. You’ve already risked your life for me. For us. I lost you once. I’m not losing you again.”

 

“Captain?”

 

“Jason. My…call me Jason.”

 

“Jason. You can’t do this. Please.”

 

“Those ships out there are trying to entrap the innocent. Not pirates, but the innocent. We’re going to make sure they fall into their own trap. Now, please, god, Timothy. Stay here.” Tim had never heard such a pleading tone from the captain before. This time, it was Tim’s turn to be shocked as Jason pressed a quick kiss against his lips before leaving and locking the captain’s quarters from outside.

 

———————

**Gun powder and smoke**

 

-BOOM!-

 

Tim coughed and stumbled through the new hole in Jason’s quarters.

 

“He said he wanted a better view.” Kory laughed, in good spirits even with cannon fire surrounding the ship.

 

———————

**Darling**

 

“Well, this is new.”

 

“Thought you’d be used to being in the ocean by now, darling.”

 

“The island isn’t too far. How are you at swimming?” Tim asked, curiously, watching as the rest of Jason’s crew tried to grab hold of pieces of driftwood, what was left of their ship.

 

“I’m no merman, but I get by.” Jason leered, still the cocky captain, even without his ship.

 

———————

**Made of gold**

 

“It’s empty.”

 

“What?”

 

“God damn it.”

 

“Jason. It’s not empty. Well, it is but that’s not the treasure.”

 

“What are you on about?”

 

“Look at the wood. It isn’t real. It’s gold. The whole chest is gold. The chest is the treasure.”

 

“It was real.”

 

“They didn’t know. They just booby-trapped the lagoon.”

 

“By god, the treasure.”

 

———————

**When You Don’t Need Me**

 

“You’ll stay then? In our…time.” Jason tested out the word as though he had never used it before. And he hadn’t. Not like this.

 

“I’ll stay as long as you’ll let me. Until you don’t need or want me anymore.” Tim told him softly. He exhaled as Jason’s arm tightened around his waist.

 

“I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”


End file.
